On September 14th the US ACM organized a panel on Algorithmic Transparency and Accountability in Washington DC to discuss the importance of the Statement on Algorithmic Transparency and Accountability and opportunities for cooperation between academia, government and industry around these principles. Also part of this panel was Ansgar, representing the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethical Considerations for Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems, its P7000 series of Standards activities, and UnBias.

Just two days earlier, on September 12th, the IEEE news source The Institute published a blog article “Keeping Bias From Creeping Into Code“, based on an interview with Ansgar about the P7003 Standard for Algorithmic Bias Considerations.

The panel was chaired by Simson L. Garfinkel, Co-Chair of USACM’s Working Group on Algorithmic Transparency and Accountability and further included:

• Geoff A. Cohen, Ph.D., Vice President at Stroz Friedberg, an Aon company, specializing in computer science and intellectual property litigation, including patent, trade secret, and copyright cases. Cohen has extensive experience investigating the development and design of software systems, identifying and assessing evidence of infringement, and researching and evaluating prior art.
• Nicholas Diakopoulos, an Assistant Professor of Communication at Northwestern University, as well as a Tow Fellow at Columbia University School of Journalism, and Associate Professor II at the University of Bergen Department of Information Science and Media Studies. His research is in computational and data journalism with emphasis on algorithmic accountability and social computing in the news.
• Jeanna Neefe Matthews, an associate professor of computer science at Clarkson University. A member of the Executive Committee of the U.S. Public Policy Committee of ACM (USACM), co-chair of USACM’s working group on algorithmic accountability and coauthor of the USACM Statement on Algorithmic Transparency and Accountability.
• Dan Rubins, co-founder of Legal Robot in 2015 frequent contributor to Open Source Software, and speaker on the impact of Artificial Intelligence in Law.